Federal government gives $2 million to help prevent extremism in British Columbia

Ash Murni / November 14, 2018

BC will receive $2 million in funding by the federal government to combat extremism
(Criminal / Pixabay)

BC will receive $2 million in funding from the federal government to address extremism in the province. The federal program known as “Shift” is set to work with numerous partners such as municipal governments, law enforcement and community outreach organizations. The main objective of “Shift” is to interact with vulnerable people who may be on the path to radicalization. According to the Canada Centre for Community Engagement and Prevention of Violence, “radicalization to violence” occurs when a person or group takes on extreme ideas and begins to think they should use violence to support their beliefs.

The Canada Centre is implementing a plan to increase digital literacy to prevent radicalization. The Centre wants to work with the Global Internet Forum to identify and take down extremist content and eventually restrict it from ever being posted. Funds will be used to create programs that promote positive mentioning which counters those who are searching terms associated with radicalization with positive ads.

“The work that the Canada Centre does is focus on all forms of radicalization to violence. Everything from radicalization to support Daesh, to right wing extremism. Sometimes the public conversation tends to focus on one form. It is important to remember that there are many forms of radicalization to violence and they are all of concern.”” – Scott Bardsley, Press Secretary of the Office for the Minister of Public Safety Canada.

Similar programs have already been applied in Edmonton, Calgary and Toronto. Scott Bardsley stated “we can’t adopt a top down one size fits all national approach, we need to have approaches that are tailored to local realities all across Canada in order to be successful… and intervene and take people who are at risk off that dark path.”

The federal government has allocated $35 million nationally to the Canadian Centre for Community Engagement and Prevention of Violence over the course of five years.

The main objective of the “Shift” prevention program is to interact with vulnerable people who may be on the path to radicalization.
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